Thursday, September 9, 2010

Burning Lips and Soaking Music

The engineering jazz band (With Respect to Time) gig went totally alright tonight. How alright? This alright:

Now you might be thinking: it seems to me that could have gone a little more alright. And you would be partially right! Because, yeah, you know, it wasn't completely perfect and we will probably have to print off some new music (including a copy of that trumpet solo I lost before the set... the panicked improvised version was a more legit jazz solo anyway) but it was kind of fun in an insane Oh God There's Frosh Everywhere And Maybe This One Won't Mind If I Shove Him Out Of My Way With A Trumpet Case kind of way.

I was actually pleasantly surprised by how not outright painful this performance was. I mean that in a completely literal sense: trumpet playing is really quite physical, but it uses muscles (lip muscles) that are hardly ever used for anything else. What that means is that if you haven't practiced for a while, playing a long gig can feel an awful lot like trying to run a marathon without training. As of this Tuesday's rehearsal I was in no shape to run a metaphorical trumpet marathon, but somehow it worked out tonight (thanks are owed to the other two trumpet players who showed up today for pulling us through).

I could go on (so much craziness in one evening!) but tomorrow is still a work day, so I should probably get to the sleeping.